<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Weight we Carry by Kirak</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24812443">The Weight we Carry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirak/pseuds/Kirak'>Kirak</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brotherly Love, Forgiveness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Prison, Quiet, Redemption Ending, Saying nothing and everything, fifteen years later</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:09:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24812443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirak/pseuds/Kirak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>'The trees towering above them open suddenly out at the edge of the Nisqually River. The odd formation juts out of the rock like a familiar hand sheltering its secrets from the rest of the world...'</p><p>What Sean and Daniel might have said to each other in the National Park during the Redemption ending.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Weight we Carry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I love these brothers so much and I kept thinking of what they would (and couldn't) say to each other in the Redemption ending, post-prison and fifteen years apart.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The trees towering above them open suddenly out at the edge of the Nisqually River. The odd formation juts out of the rock like a familiar hand sheltering its secrets from the rest of the world.</p><p>Daniel slides beneath it instantly, wrapping his hands around his knees, curling himself in smaller as though he is fifteen years younger; fifteen years more reckless and prone to doing terrible things without having to worry about carrying the weight of their consequences. Next to him, his elder brother sits, swallowed him up by his clothes and the shadows and the smoke from his cigarette.</p><p>After a rest, Daniel collects dry logs and sticks and makes a fire. He talks as he works; random observations he’s carried for far too long:</p><p>‘I wonder if those trail blazes are still here. Did you see any on the way?’</p><p>‘I’m glad the Bear gas station got closed down.’</p><p>‘I found some berries to go with our sandwiches.’</p><p>‘Think we’ll need fortifications this time, Sean?’</p><p>Sean kicks his lighter towards him. Daniel blows gently until the sparks catch the twigs. Beneath the rock, Sean is somehow more two dimensional than his photographs on Daniel’s cork board. His brown eyes are downturned like Fall leaves drowning on the surface of the river.</p><p>Beside the fire, Daniel swallows. ‘Am I bugging you, Sean?’ He whispers into the flames, ‘Do you want me to be quiet?’</p><p>In the cold blue sky above them, a hawk circles.</p><p>‘No,’ Sean says, finally, ‘you’re not bugging me.’</p><p>The hawk swoops and dives.</p><p>Daniel’s fingers trace shapes in the dirt. His fingers itch for his sketchbook, tossed out of his rucksack onto his bed at the last moment.</p><p>Sean lifts his head, finally, watching Daniel’s fingertips etching trees, cars, waves, smoothing the dirt; a wolf, an eye, the bars of a cell, smoothing the dirt. He stops, rubs his hands on his jeans, then fumbles in his backpack.</p><p>‘You wanna beer?’</p><p>‘Sure.’</p><p>Daniel cracks a can open and places it just outside the cave, beside Sean. <em>Like coaxing out a nervous puppy</em>, he thinks sadly. He thinks about Mushroom: his silky soft fur, the innocence in those trusting brown eyes, the red paw prints in the snow. Sean shifts closer to the fire to take the beer. From his backpack, Daniel takes a coke for himself.</p><p>‘Your voice is a lot lower than I remember it, <em>enano</em>.’ Sean swigs his beer and takes a long, shattered breath. ‘I’m trying to get used to it.’</p><p>‘I visited you,’ Daniel blurts out, guiltily. He had made the thirteen-hour trip up to Oregon from California ever since the start of college, every month at first, at least every few months without fail. Perhaps not as often as he might since he had started work.</p><p>‘I didn’t mean that, <em>enano</em>. It’s not you.’</p><p>Daniel shrugs it off, ‘I guess nine-year-old me didn’t drink beer with his older brother either. I’ve got something in common with that little guy.’</p><p>‘You’d have tried to get away with it, then,’ Sean smiles, gazing into the fire as though he is looking for something, ‘then blame it on me when you got caught. Do you remember when you stole Dad’s eggnog at Christmas?’</p><p>‘Hey, I thought it was custard. Never threw up so hard since,’ Daniel grins. ‘Claire and Stephen didn’t relax their rules around Christmases, so I didn’t get to try it again.’ Sean’s expression begins to wilt at the edges, so he tries again, ‘Now it’s legal for me to drink, the fun’s kind of worn off.’</p><p>Sean takes a long hard look at Daniel and nods slowly, ‘How’s Chris?’</p><p>‘He’s good. He does art therapy with kids in the week, but he’s doing his first proper exhibition next month if you fancy a trip down to San Diego.’ Daniel can’t help but smile, ‘You’d love his art, Sean. For part of his portfolio, he did this piece on climate change which was all these blue hands of recycled plastic, melted down waving for help in this ocean and- I’m doing a bad job of describing it but it’s good. I like it anyway.’</p><p>Daniel pauses, blinking at Sean.</p><p>‘He really wants to make the world a better place. Art’s good for that I guess.’</p><p>Sean grimaces into the fire.</p><p>‘He asks about you. I think I must’ve talked about you too much because he says it’s like having an older brother of his own-’</p><p>Daniel looks at his brother until finally, Sean smiles, his lips contorting almost painfully as though something inside him has <em>cracked</em>, ‘That’s nice, Daniel.’</p><p>‘No, I’m not- I’m not done. He said once, just after I came to live with Claire and Stephen, after- Yeah. He said you’re the closest to a superhero he’s ever met. I just wanted to tell you that.’</p><p>Sean swallows. His eyes close and hands draw together across his knees as he speaks, ‘I’m not.’</p><p>‘Huh?’</p><p>‘A hero. Super or otherwise.’</p><p>‘You’re mine.’</p><p>‘Heroes don’t break the law, <em>enano</em>. They don’t get sent to juvie, then wind up wasting the best years of their life in jail. These things do not happen to heroes.’</p><p>‘You’re wrong.’</p><p>‘Captain America. Luke Cage. Punisher. Iron Fist. Daredevil. Wolverine. Spiderman. Batman. Loads of the X-men. Ant-man. Green Lantern. Not sure where you’ve been hiding but superheroes getting sent to jail is kind of a recurring theme.’</p><p>Sean pauses. Finally, he speaks, his voice hesitant, ‘You know exactly where I’ve been ‘hiding’. And I’m so glad you’ve spent the last fifteen years wisely, <em>enano</em>.’</p><p>Daniel grins, ‘Hey, you have Chris to blame. Initially anyway. Now, I gotta do my research for Superwolf. Make sure none of the best storylines have been done to death already.’ He smiles casually at Sean, his heart thumping too fast, ‘You still draw?’</p><p>‘No. I don’t draw any more, Daniel.’</p><p>‘How come?’</p><p>‘What would I have to draw?’ Sean shrugs.</p><p>‘You were always an artist. You-’ Daniel struggles to comprehend a world where <em>Sean Diaz does not draw</em>. ‘You used to draw stuff that wasn’t there all the time. Zombies. Sea monsters. Rogue flying telekinesis-sufferers. You know?’</p><p>‘I always liked to start from observation, then add the imaginary later. The best art happens when you use what you know, what you see.’</p><p>‘So why did you stop?’</p><p>‘Why did you stop using your powers?’</p><p>Daniel’s fingers draw patterns over and over in the dust. He smooths them over, then starts again.</p><p>‘Sorry,’ Sean says quietly. He draws a man with an eye patch in the dirt, bars covering him, his expression like a scream. He smooths it over with his foot. He grimaces, ‘I guess I stopped drawing when the observation got too depressing. Or maybe it was adding the other stuff. It felt too much like hope, really. Impossible stuff happens, right?’ Sean’s thin smile cuts across his face. ‘Hope didn’t help me. It kinda made it harder.’</p><p>Daniel closes his eyes and takes a breath. ‘You could start again now. Drawing, I mean?’</p><p>‘Yeah. Sure, Daniel.’</p><p>Daniel pauses for just a second too long.</p><p>‘I was thinking, you could maybe do some work on Superwolf with me. I mean, I’d have to get the network’s approval, but-’</p><p>Sean shakes his head slowly, breathing heavily through his nose.</p><p>‘Please, Sean. It never felt right to me, doing it without you.’</p><p>‘Because of one sketch I did, thirteen years ago?’</p><p>‘No, Sean.’</p><p>‘You still used it as the cover for the first issue. And added my name.’</p><p>‘The story’s yours.’</p><p>‘No, <em>enano.</em> It was always you,’ Sean gulps back the rest of the beer. ‘I’ll um- I’ll think about it. You got another one of these?’</p><p>Daniel pushes another can towards him. ‘The story was all yours. I just held onto it for a while, until I couldn’t stand it.’</p><p>‘Don’t think I’d sneak past the background checks, anyway.’</p><p>‘I’m not sure they’d give a damn, honestly.’ <em>Not with you being my brother. </em>No, Daniel thinks, that isn’t true. He’s never really had to push for what he wants. He’s not really been there long enough to issue his demands. Is Superwolf popular enough to make him indispensable? Probably not. But he will, for Sean.</p><p>‘Thanks for saying that. You’ve got your own life, Daniel. Honestly. It’s better you keep it that way,’ Sean closes his eyes, nodding himself into yet another sacrifice. ‘Um, Lyla’s offered me a space on her couch until I figure it out.’</p><p>The fire spits as Daniel tosses on another log. He eats a Chock-O-Crisp and offers one to Sean, who holds it loosely in his palm until it begins to melt inside its wrapper. He drops it and lights another cigarette instead.</p><p>Daniel gets his phone and speaker out of his backpack because the weight of the silence between each inhale, exhale, is too much for either of them but he doesn’t know the conversations to fill the spaces and mend whatever it is in his brother that has been broken. He doesn’t know how to ask this. So he plays a playlist of songs echoed on a midnight radio, songs once strummed by a sweet, purple haired girl, songs that made him feel alone whenever he heard them until tonight.</p><p>The sun sets over the river, dyeing the sky and its reflection a rich amber behind the tall trees. Daniel reaches over and holds Sean’s hand as though he is a nine year old boy, seeking comfort from his elder brother, not a twenty six year old man, afraid of his own weakness. Sean squeezes his hand and doesn’t let go.</p><p>They sit, still and nearly silent as the full moon rises. At some point – Daniel isn’t sure when – Sean begins to cry. When Daniel notices, he doesn’t blame the smoke from the fire, or the alcohol from the beer. He just cries, simply and without end and Daniel doesn’t know what to do. The ache goes all the way through him.</p><p>He unfolds a blanket from the backpack and gently wraps it around Sean’s shoulders. He sits right up next to him under the rock. Daniel leans his head on Sean’s shoulder for a second, then puts his arm around him. He watches as the stars begin to show in the darkening sky. Insects buzz around the dying fire. Below them, the river laps at its banks.</p><p>The playlist ends. Sean stretches and the blanket falls from his shoulders. He lays it underneath him. Daniel pulls another blanket from the backpack and lays it out it under himself. Shining the light from his phone, he grabs Sean another beer and himself another candy bar.</p><p>Sean rolls his eyes fondly, ‘Some things never change.’</p><p>‘Yeah, I’ve got the same great taste,’ Daniel tilts his head, taking a bite of his Chock-O-Crisp.</p><p>Sean swats him lightly over the head with an empty beer can and lies back on his blanket, ‘I miss you, <em>enano</em>.’</p><p>‘I missed you too, Sean.’ Daniel pauses. He shuffles down onto his elbows until he is lying down next to Sean, maybe an inch of blanket between them. ‘I'm right here,' Daniel says gently. ‘I’m right here.’</p><p>Sean stretches his fingers out until they almost touch. In a beat, he swipes the half-eaten Chock-O-Crisp out from between Daniel's fingers.</p><p>'Oy!' Daniel grins and rolls his eyes as Sean tilts his head up and takes a large melodramatic bite, ‘Yeah, you were right. Some things never change.’</p><p>He goes quiet and turns his head sideways. Sean is staring at one corner of the cave where several people have carved their initials, messages and memorials. It makes sense to Daniel; wanting to preserve a part of themselves in the rock that has endured tens, hundreds, even thousands of years. As the world around them moving forward, those marks in the rock still remained, unmarked and unmoved.</p><p>‘The last time I used my powers,’ Daniel doesn’t realise he is speaking until he hears his own voice echoing slightly in the cave, ‘The last time, I saved this busload of schoolchildren, about ten years ago, now? They were coming back from a field trip on the road leading up to Beaver Creek. The bridge started to collapse,’ Daniel grins painfully. ‘Chris and I were riding our bikes and, well, I gotta be in the right place at the right time at least once in my life, right?</p><p>Daniel pauses.</p><p>‘I was shaking all over for hours afterwards. I think it was shock. I didn’t want to- No, I didn’t <em>not</em> want to-’ He stops and looks at Sean, who nods, slowly, ‘It just happened. Chris was great. He called the fire service and ambulance and Claire and Stephen. They guessed of course. She wanted to take me to the hospital, you know what Claire’s like, but uh, Stephen talked her out of it.’</p><p>‘You don’t need me to say you did the right thing, Daniel,’ Sean smiles at him and it’s like the old Sean is back, just for a second, ‘Dad would be proud.’</p><p>‘I was angry at myself for a long time. After you- The border. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t. Unless I had to. I meant it.’</p><p>‘I know.’ Sean looks right across at Daniel, his hands under his head, eyes flicking between the stars and his brother. ‘I’d do it every time, Daniel. If I could redo the ending, at the border, like that, I still wouldn’t change a thing.’</p><p>‘I know.’ Daniel hates himself because if he could, if the impossible did happen, he isn’t sure that he would either and for fifteen years, he’s resigned himself to living with the steady weight of this guilt on his chest because there was no running from what he had done. What <em>they</em> had done. His voice breaks, ‘Sean, I’m so sorry.’</p><p>‘I’m sorry too, <em>enano</em>.’</p><p>Lying on their blankets, they stare up at the cracks in the stone and the sky. Crickets chirp and leaves rustle in the breeze. The river flows forward, never looking back. Beneath the full moon’s pale glow, the wolf brothers howl together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>